Rice hires Matt Bragga as next baseball coach

Tennessee Tech coach Matt Bragga realizes UT had a rooting interest in seeing his team emerge from the Oxford Regional and travel to Austin for the super regional.

Tennessee Tech coach Matt Bragga realizes UT had a rooting interest in seeing his team emerge from the Oxford Regional and travel to Austin for the super regional.

Photo: Bruce Newman, MBO / Associated Press

Photo: Bruce Newman, MBO / Associated Press

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Tennessee Tech coach Matt Bragga realizes UT had a rooting interest in seeing his team emerge from the Oxford Regional and travel to Austin for the super regional.

Tennessee Tech coach Matt Bragga realizes UT had a rooting interest in seeing his team emerge from the Oxford Regional and travel to Austin for the super regional.

Photo: Bruce Newman, MBO / Associated Press

Rice hires Matt Bragga as next baseball coach

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During the interview process with Matt Bragga, Rice athletic director Joe Karlgaard checked off all the boxes, everything from extensive Division I head coaching experience, staunch support from within the baseball coaching community and a nation-best 53 wins this season at Tennessee Tech that ended one victory shy of a trip to the College World Series.

One other thing caught Karlgaard's attention.

"He has an infectious personality," Karlgaard said Friday after Bragga was named the 21st coach in school history. "You can see how his players play so hard for him and how he's built a great culture and camaraderie in the Tennessee Tech baseball program. That shines through spending five minutes with the guy."

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It's that energy and track record the Owls are banking helps return a program, in decline in recent years, to its former glory as a perennial powerhouse. Bragga, 45, takes over for Wayne Graham, whose contract was not renewed at the end of the season after a Hall of Fame career that produced a national title in 2003 and 23 straight NCAA Tournament appearances.

"Matt Bragga is the right person to carry on the terrific legacy and national prominence of Rice baseball," Karlgaard said.

Bragga signed a five-year contract. Additional contract details were not available because Rice is a private school. He will be introduced at a campus news conference late next week.

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Bragga emerged as the pick from a search that lasted almost a month and included nearly a dozen candidates, a mix of former Rice players, Division I head coaches and assistants and a former major league manager.

"Rice baseball has an incredible storied history, and I'm excited that I've been entrusted to be the new coach," Bragga said by phone Friday night. "Wayne Graham did a great job and built a great program. This is still, in my opinion, one of the elite programs in the country."

Karlgaard said Bragga became the choice because of success "building the program from the ground up with limited resources" in 15 seasons at Tennessee Tech. Bragga won Ohio Valley Conference titles in six of the last 10 seasons and was a four-time conference coach of the year.

Tennessee Tech won at least 40 games in four of the last six seasons and made back-to-back NCAA appearances for the first time in school history. The Golden Eagles went 53-12 this season, winning the Oxford (Miss.) Regional before falling to Texas in a best-of-three super regional.

This season Tennessee Tech boasted the most prolific offense in the nation, leading Division I in batting average (.332), home runs (135), runs (639), hits (788) and slugging percentage (.576).

Bragga also has placed an emphasis on player development, with eight players selected in the Major League Baseball draft earlier this month, tied for the fifth-most nationally.

"It's got to be something special," Bragga said of the decision to leave the Cookeville, Tenn., school. "It's got to be something that's just totally eye-popping, and Rice is absolutely that."

Karlgaard said Bragga received strong endorsements from several college coaches.

"One said, 'I'd send my own son to play for him,'" Karlgaard said. "That means a lot."

Rice cast a wide net in the search for its new coach — a job that had not been open since Graham took over after the 1991 season — and interviewed former players Lance Berkman, Jose Cruz Jr., Paul Janish and Norm Charlton, along with TCU pitching coach Kirk Saarloos, Southeastern Louisiana coach Matt Riser, TCU associate head coach Bill Mosiello, Texas assistant Sean Allen and former Astros manager Bo Porter.

By Friday night, Bragga said he had received about 300 text messages. One came from Berkman, considered the top player in school history and a 15-year major leaguer who had support for the job from 50 former players who signed a petition.

"What a class act," Bragga said. "That speaks volumes of the type of man he is."

Bragga said his first steps will be to get to know the Owls' roster "one by one" and put together a coaching staff.

"Those are two things that are of the upmost importance in terms of getting rolling," he said.